For the first time, the Edmonton Oilers' three No. 1 picks in the NHL Entry Draft scored their first three goals of a hockey game.

1.Taylor Hall.

2.Nail Yakupov.

3.Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

OK, It wasn't in the actual order they were drafted. And it wasn't the first time they'd all scored in the same game. It was the second.

The first was April 3 last year in an 8-2 win over the Flames in Calgary. They weren't the first three goals of the game. But they were three goals in a row. Yakupov. Hall. Nugent-Hopkins. All of them were on power plays. Yakupov scored a second goal with just over a minute remaining in the game.

This night the three goals were all scored in regulation time.

If the Oilers hadn't turned back into the Oilers and a 3-1 and 4-1 game hadn't ended up 4-4 in overtime before Nugent-Hopkins drew a penalty and then set up Jordan Eberle in a 5-4 win over the Carolina Hurricanes, it would have been easier to write this.

But sometimes there's just no point in critiquing a win. And this was one of them.

“We won the game,” said Taylor Hall.

“It wasn't the ending but we rallied together and got a goal on that power play and sometimes that's what you need,” added the NHL's second star of the week, whose goal was his fifth in his last three games .

His high, hard snapshot goal at 1:33 of the first period and the set-up assist on Yakupov's goal pushed him into the team lead in points. It was his 12th goal and left him with 27 points in 25 game. It's been a long time since the Oilers had a point-per-game player.

“I hope there will be more and more lots of goals with us for our team,” said Yakupov.

It was Yakupov's first five-on-five goal of the year and ended a seven game pointless streak. Picking up an assist on the Hall goal, it was also his second two-point game of the season.

But it was the one-timer, a rocket of a shot Yakupov fired a few minutes later, which brought the fans out of their seats.

Yakupov only has five goals and 11 points to show for his sophomore season. But fans need to be reminded of the 20-year-old's upside. And last night they were.

As for Nugent-Hopkins, his quick release, top shelf goal was a beauty, too. It was his seventh of the season and the three points left him with 25.

Three pretty goals to start and not much pretty to watch after that until Eberle won the game.

“I don't care how we get them. That was two points,” said coach Dallas Eakins. “Would we like to end that game 4-1? Absolutely. But the important thing is that there's two points on the night.

“Obviously we're always going to look to those guys to put up points and put up goals and they did that,” he added of his three No. 1 picks.

“Listen, they're all growing as we go along. They are all going to play very large roles in our organization's success for the next several years.

“The challenge for them is not only to start games like that but to finish them like that and play the next game like that and the next game. That's where you see the real good veterans and the real elite players – they play like that every game, every night. And that's the challenge of our young men.

“I just feel like the guys are more together now. And it's great to see because it could have been very easy for them all to just fall apart where we were a month ago.”

At the end of the evening, Edmonton won the hockey game to go 7-3-1 in their last 11 games. If they'd started the season like that, Edmonton would have been ecstatic.

“I don't expect people to be jumping up and down over our record the last little bit,” said Eakins.

“The thing we've done to ourselves is put ourselves in such a large hole that even when you are playing well over a stretch, when you read the standings in the morning and we're still down where we're at.”

As Advertised in the Edmonton SUN

Oilers' No 1 picks click against Canes

For the first time, the Edmonton Oilers' three No. 1 picks in the NHL Entry Draft scored their first three goals of a hockey game.

1.Taylor Hall.

2.Nail Yakupov.

3.Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

OK, It wasn't in the actual order they were drafted. And it wasn't the first time they'd all scored in the same game. It was the second.

The first was April 3 last year in an 8-2 win over the Flames in Calgary. They weren't the first three goals of the game. But they were three goals in a row. Yakupov. Hall. Nugent-Hopkins. All of them were on power plays. Yakupov scored a second goal with just over a minute remaining in the game.

This night the three goals were all scored in regulation time.

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After the odd game or the occasional stretch like the recent Arizona-Arizona-Toronto, 899,447 Edmontonians, and half as many again in surrounding communities, run around shouting ‘The Sky Is Falling! The Sky is Falling!’